All Forum Posts by: Kuba F.

Hi BiggerPockets Community,

Kuba Fietkiewicz here, founder of online house flipping software REIkit.com. Today I want to talk about how you, as wholesalers looking to market to your buyer's list, can create professional reports to send to them in minutes.

When I first started REIkit.com, I often got requests for new tools from wholesalers who were presented with an interesting problem. They were finding deals, running comps and getting ARV so that they can present to their buyer's list a deal that investors would want.

The problem was that they were frustrated with the limitations of the word processing programs they were using to create these deal sheets. They thought they were difficult to put together, boring to look at, and just didn’t present that professional, polished look they wanted to show.

I took all that feedback in and created an interface where wholesalers can build out a property detail report in just a few steps. It looks great, and best of all can be printed, emailed, or shared. See what an example report looks like here:

https://tools.reikit.com/properties/8a10533a

If you’d like to try out the wholesale deal report builder check out our free trial here: www.reikit.com

Any questions or comments about the software, would love to hear from you in comments below or chat on the site. 

Cheers!

Kuba

@Account Closed Welcome to BiggerPockets! Being here is definitely a great start. 

I'd dive into the meetups near you, or in the area where you want to wholesale or invest. It's very helpful to network with other folks and get a general lay of the land on what buyers are looking for. BP has a great list of clubs here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/rei/real-estate-clubs/

Also, you can never know enough different marketing techniques and methods to acquire the properties you are going to wholesale. This Biggerpockets blog post has 55 ways to find off-market deals online. Some of these might work for you starting out, others you might need when you start to scale your business: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8814/72016-55-resources-to-find-real-estate-deals-online

Happy investing and feel free to reach out if I can help with anything.

Hey Everyone,

This is Kuba Fietkiewicz, founder of REIkit.com house flipping software in Los Angeles. Today I wanted to talk about property flipping rehab costs.

If you're just starting out in the house flipping business, you may have found out how hard it is to estimate house construction costs. There are really only two options in solving that problem:

1. You can bring a general contractor with you to every property you think is a potential deal, or 2. You can get hands-on experience in identifying what is wrong with a house and do your own estimates.

The first choice is going to become expensive, fast. Unless you are in a position where you can offer work to the GC on a property you acquire, you're not going to get anyone to work for you for free.

The second option is the way to go. Yes, it requires more time and effort, but the education you acquire and eventual savings will more than make up for that. So, what's the best way to get this experience?

In my own fix and flips, I evaluate as many properties as I can find, and when I go to visit a potential flip, I take along my camera and film a walk through of each room and the exterior, carefully narrating what needs repairing.

Then comes the difficult part: identifying all the items involved with a repair, itemizing all of these costs into one tidy list, and calculating the final cost. For example, a window repair not only includes the cost of the actual window but also the labor that it costs to install it.

I created the Rehab Estimate tool to help take the unknown out of getting an accurate estimate. Not only does the tool have thousands of items to choose from, but each item has a material cost and labor cost associated to it, with all costs based on your zip code, so you get the most accurate estimate. From there it creates an itemized list for you to share with contractors for project bids.

If you'd like to see how the Rehab Estimate tool can help you with your estimations, try it out here: https://www.reikit.com

Any questions or suggestions, I'd love to hear it; comment below or chat at the site.

Cheers!

Kuba

@Brad Jarvis Welcome to BiggerPockets! You mentioned checking out some real estate investment meetups, but that you'd probably not invest locally. This is a great time to branch out and go to investment clubs in each area that you are considering. You'll get a lot of insider knowledge that will help you determine the ideal area for your eventual rentals. Here's a list of clubs that might be helpful: https://www.biggerpockets.com/rei/real-estate-clubs/

Happy investing and feel free to reach out if I can help with anything.

Kuba

Hey Everyone,

Kuba Fietkiewicz here, founder of online real estate investment software REIkit.com. Today I wanted to take a minute to talk about an real estate investing mistake that is easily avoidable.

Here on Biggerpockets, you see questions from the community such as, "what is the biggest mistake you've ever made in investing." People want to know what actions they can take to not make the same mistakes. 

I have my own flip disaster story that I often share on webinars about how to fail at flipping. On my first flip, there were a number of events that went wrong that I could have foreseen. In retrospect, however, I never would have purchased the property in the first place had I known what I do now. One of the main reasons why the flip failed is because, when calculating the ARV of the property I wanted to buy, I did not adjust my comps for features.

If I had taken the extra 30 minutes to compare the subject property features, like garages, against the comps, I would have discovered that the subject just didn't have features that all of the other comps did, erasing $10,000 dollars of my expected profit.

My frustrated experiences led me to create my real estate investment software company, REIkit.com. One of the first tools I built is a free ARV calculator, that also includes a free comps adjustment tool, to help others avoid the same outcome.

You have nothing to lose by trying out the ARV calculator and comps adjustment tool, except an expensive mistake. There is also a video tutorial on how to adjust comps to get to an accurate ARV:

https://tools.reikit.com/comps

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the comments below or I am available to chat on the site.

Cheers!

Kuba

Hi Everyone,

Kuba Fietkiewicz here, founder of REIkit.com real estate investment software based out of Los Angeles. 

Most real estate investors today know that finding deals is not as easy as it was five years ago. Properties on the MLS are going for tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking. This makes finding a deal on the MLS very difficult, although there are still deals to be had if you can find a property that is hugely undervalued.

The alternative to the MLS is to think outside of the box, and utilize every single method, strategy, and website that can possibly net a deal. Such sources of deals can be as well-known as putting out 'We Buy Houses' signs on every street corner. Not so obvious methods would be looking at property seized by the IRS or other government real property surplus sites.

That's just one example of how to find wholesale and off-market deals online. For the other 54 methods, check out this post: 55 Resources to Find Real Estate Deals Online

Do you have any online techniques to find properties that we missed?

Cheers!

Kuba

The time you spend depends on what stage you are in.

If you're trying to find a deal, with it being a seller's market in many places right now, you could spend 4-8 hours a day if you wanted to, marketing for, researching, and analyzing hundreds of properties before you find one that makes sense.

The construction process itself doesn't have to be so involved, just requires making sure things are getting done, and figuring out way to overcome obstacles.  It's more of a time, communication, budget, and risk management exercise.

Flip is a good book, but the devil's in the details and the accuracy of those numbers are dependent on many factors.  I believe in that book they use rules of thumb/percentages for Quiet costs for example, which are too imprecise (and too low) for me to be able to use to determine my offers.

Here's a BP blog post I wrote with a list of costs you might expect in the Quiet costs category, 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8814/70530-fix...

and you can see how fast that can exceed the FLIP percentage rules of thumb of: 

Buying 1.50%
Holding 1.50%
Selling 6.50%

Cheers!

Kuba

For a $115K sale at a $65K purchase to another investor is pretty thin for a cosmetic flip, probably around 5-10K profit in the end.  I mean it's money, but if it takes 6 months to make 10K, then you're making something around $9/hr over the span of 6 months closing to closing (many assumptions made).  

That being said, those numbers are still good for a first flip because if you're making a little bit of money and learning on an easy cosmetic flip, then that's a good way to learn without putting too much at risk.  

On the other hand if you wholesale it and get it under contract for $60K and assign it for a $5K fee, then you take a short cut to getting to your $5K profit, but you miss the opportunity to learn the rehab part.

As has been said before, verify your numbers...trust no one's numbers but your own, assume nothing.

Hey @Christopher Gandara, looks like you wrote this a few days ago but I just posted a Biggerpockets blog on 55 ways to find off-market/wholesale deals online. Looks like you're already making headway on 2 of them -- just getting yourself out there and being in the thick of it all is half the battle. Here's the post and good luck!

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8814/72016-55-resources-to-find-real-estate-deals-online

If I can help with anything else, feel free to reach out.

Kuba